Gary Carter, the famed Montreal Expos’ Hall of Famer, is one of three players to wear the team’s logo on their induction caps. In all, the popular catcher participated in 11 All-Star Games, and won three Gold Gloves and five Silver Slugger awards. (Paul Knowles photo for Vacay.ca)
If you listen closely, you will hear sorrowful sighs. That’s because, at some point during their tour of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, Canadian visitors will feel a certain sense of sadness.
It’s not because Cooperstown falsely claims to be the birthplace of baseball — that myth has been debunked, and the truth is acknowledged in a display in the Hall of Fame. Even though the adjoining ball field is named for Abner Doubleday, the Museum includes an exhibit explaining that the Doubleday creation story is pure fiction. That should comfort all those Canadians who believe baseball began in Beachville, Ontario.
And the sadness is not primarily because there are so few Canadians in the Hall (there are only two, to date).
The Montreal Expos were the first Major League Baseball franchise located outside the United States. They played in the National League from 1969 until 2004 before moving to Washington, D.C.. And yes, it still hurts. (Paul Knowles photo for Vacay.ca)
No, the moment when we Canadians feel sad comes when we realize how much Montreal Expos memorabilia is in the museum, and how many former Expos are celebrated with those iconic bronze displays in the Hall of Fame Plaque Gallery. After 35 years in Montreal, they moved across the border in 2005 to become the Washington Nationals. And they’re never coming back.
That especially hit me in the Plaque Gallery, as I stood before the plaque of the late Gary Carter, the famed Expos catcher. I am a blue-to-the-bone Toronto Blue Jays fan, but I have a real soft spot for The Kid. You see, in 1986, I wrote a book, “Home Run”, about the Blue Jays of that year, and Carter very kindly — and without compensation — agreed to write the foreward.
Carter is one of several former Expos who are members of the Hall. In the case of three of them – Carter, Andre Dawson, and Tim Raines – their caps portrayed on the plaques bear the Expos logo, a proud but sad reminder of the heritage of the long-lost team.
Expos outfielder Tim Raines blossomed into one of the best leadoff hitters in Major League Baseball history while playing in Montreal. (Paul Knowles photo for Vacay.ca)
This business of logos on caps is a rather contentious issue at the Hall. There are eight former Expos who have been inducted — the others include a name more familiar now in a second generation: Vladimir Guerreo Sr. The others are Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Tony Perez, and Larry Walker of British Columbia. But the latter four chose to wear the caps of another team for which they played.
That kind of decision is even more obvious among those former Blue Jays who have been inducted into the Hall. If you search among the team’s inductees, you will find only one — Roberto Alomar — whose cap bears a Blue Jays logo. Oddly, two of the former Jays — Roy Halladay and new Hall of Famer Fred McGriff — have blank caps. They are among only six out of 273 players who have opted to leave their caps empty, because they could not choose between the teams for which they played.
McGriff explained, “In discussing my career with the Hall of Fame, we decided that with no logo on my plaque, I can equally represent these cities and the incredible fans in Toronto, where I got my start, Atlanta, where we won the World Series, and my hometown of Tampa Bay, as well as my time in San Diego.”
According to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, approximately 260,000 visitors enter the museum each year, and the running total has surpassed 17 million. (Paul Knowles photo for Vacay.ca)
Halladay was inducted in 2019, two years after he was killed in a plane crash. His wife, Brandy Halladay, acknowledged Halladay’s connection to Toronto, but added, “There’s no way to decide between the two teams, and I know we’ve spent the majority of our time in Toronto. Toronto gave us that chance, that base at the start, but Philly also gave us a chance to win and the passion that we wanted, and there’s no way to choose and so we decided that he’ll go in with no team.”
The other Jays in the Hall range from long-term heroes to one-season hires. They include Jack Morris, Frank Thomas, Rickey Henderson, Paul Molitor, Dave Winfield, Phil Niekro, manager Bobby Cox, and executive Pat Gillick. And famed Toronto broadcaster Tom Cheek is here, too. So, by the way, is one-time Expos manager Dick Williams.
Neither Canadian in the Cooperstown Hall wears an Expos or Blue Jays logo. The nation’s first inductee, pitcher Ferguson Jenkins of Chatham, Ontario, entered the Hall in 1991. He played for four major league teams, and his plaque carries the logo of the Chicago Cubs.
Pitcher Ferguson Jenkins of southern Ontario continued playing professional baseball in Canada after retiring from the major leagues in 1983. He pitched two seasons for the London Majors, a minor-league team of the Intercounty Major Baseball League. (Paul Knowles photo for Vacay.ca)
Fans of the Expos were disappointed when Walker was voted into the hall in 2020. He rose to prominence during his six years as a right fielder for the Expos, but his plaque reflects his time with the Colorado Rockies, when he was consistently one of the best hitters in the game.
The Plaque Gallery is completely old school, by the way. No digital displays, no AI magic, just walls carrying hundreds of plaques, and solemn baseball fans wandering among them, seeking out the ones that honour their heroes.
That’s rather the case on all three floors of the Hall. It’s a calm and reflective place. It demands your time, a lot like the game it honours. Yes, there is a well made, 16-minute movie, “Generations of the Game,” that is accessible to a broad audience, but the vast majority of displays are clearly created with the ardent fan in mind. There are cases jammed with memorabilia, each with its own explanatory card. A dedicated baseball fanatic could spend an entire season here, among the more than 40,000 artifacts that make up the collection.
And that’s why the Hall does offer a bit of guidance, with a neat program called “Starting Nine.” Visitors can pick up a single sheet of paper bearing the logo of their favourite team — the Blue Jays for me, obviously! — and the document will direct you to nine things in the Hall that are especially significant for your franchise. Sadly, this only applies to current teams — there is no “Starting Nine” for Montreal, although there certainly are Expos items throughout the hall, including the jersey of Dennis Martinez, the first Latin player to pitch a perfect game.
The posters announcing Fred McGriff’s induction into the Hall show him in his Blue Jays’ uniform, as well as those of other teams. But on his plaque, his hat bears no logo. (Paul Knowles photo for Vacay.ca)
The Blue Jays’ “Starting Nine” includes the bat wielded by Fred McGriff to hit the 10th home run of a game in 1987, as the Jays set a single-game record for dingers. You’ll also find Paul Molitor’s shoes from the 1993 World Series, when he was named MVP as the Jays won the championship.
There’s also a 1992 Blue Jays World Champion Ring. And speaking of Jays’ championships, one of my two favourite Canadian connections in the Hall is the bat used by Joe Carter to hit the game- and Series-winning home run in 1993; the famed “Touch ’em all, Joe,” blast that drove in Molitor with the go-ahead run.
My other favourite artifact? Canadian Russell Martin’s bright red, Canada Day Blue Jays’ jersey from 2017.
There are so many Canadian connections throughout. You’ll learn about the role Canada has played in the careers of some of the greats of the game. Jackie Robinson, the courageous player who broke the major-league colour barrier, played for the Montreal Royals in 1946. Babe Ruth hit his first professional home run in Toronto, the ball reportedly leaving the park and dropping into Lake Ontario.
Each current MLB team has a locker on display, including the Toronto Blue Jays, who played their first game in 1977. (Paul Knowles photo for Vacay.ca)
I discovered that the Hall has made a sincere attempt to tell the whole story of the game — thus, the truth about the Abner Doubleday Cooperstown myth. Visitors will learn about the development of women’s baseball — and the misogyny early players encountered. There is much about the challenges of racism, and there, too, there is a Canadian connection — although not a positive one.
Hall of Famer Bud Fowler was the first Black man to play professional baseball, beginning in 1878. In a display at the Hall, you read a report from an 1881 newspaper: “Fowler … was engaged by the Maple Leaf club, of Guelph, Ontario, recently, but when he reached Guelph, the members of the Maple Leaf club refused to play with him on account of his being a colored man.” Another place for Canadian visitors to pause and reflect.
The 2024 Hall Of Fame induction weekend is July 19-22. This year, the inductees are Adrián Beltré, Joe Mauer, Todd Helton and Jim Leyland. For information about the weekend, and how to get involved, visit baseball hall.org. Sadly there are no Canucks going into the hall this year but overall, Canadian baseball fans will enjoy the Cooperstown Hall of Fame. Schedule plenty of time to linger, to stroll, to read, to contemplate the stories — good, bad, or otherwise.
And then come back to Canada, where, to actually discover this country’s role in the creation of the game, you must visit the Beachville District Museum and also the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys.
Because there you may find, to quote a famous phrase, “the rest of the story.” But it’s probably best not to mention that in Cooperstown.
MORE ABOUT THE NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM
Website: baseballhall.org
Address: 25 Main St, Cooperstown, NY (see map below)
Phone: 1-888-425-5633 / 607-547-7200
Adults (13-64): $30
Seniors (65+): $24
Juniors (7-12): $21
Veterans: $20
MUSEUM MEMBERS FREE
ACTIVE/ CAREER RETIRED MILITARY FREE
CHILDREN (6 AND UNDER) FREE
Vacay.ca occasionally publishes content from destinations outside of Canada that our editors believe will interest our audience.
